Instagram stories

Last week I wrote a post about the necessary ingredients needed to succeed as a healthy CPG (or beverage) brand. One such brand is our awesome client OWYN. They have super smart people running point, are investing the necessary capital and hustle, have a great tasting and healthy product and are all about storytelling.

They are always open to new ideas and hacking ways to stand out from the clutter and get their brand messaging out there in the process. Ahead of a weekend full of events, we went ahead and created a custom branded GIF for Instagram Stories that can be used by them and by any IG user for that matter. We submitted to Giphy and got it approved and it is now searchable by anybody who is posting a Story.

Without prodding or planning, we had someone post it within a day of creating the asset. Even better, the person @Jessmair, is a power user, with 57K followers on the platform. We have effectively empowered a true influencer with some ammunition to do the heavy lifting for us. We put in some work and earned some free exposure for the brand.

On this episode, I talk about the current state of affairs on Instagram. Organic reach in the feed is way down and brands need to be smarter about how they are adjusting to that fact. Some quick takes:

1- Posting more, is not the answer. In fact, it seems to accelerate the fall off in organic reach and impressions.

2- Stories are the jam. If you want to post more, just post there instead and watch the numbers.

3- Video View campaigns are cheap and effective.

Instagram is the place to be for brands, but the game has changed a bit for sure. Don’t be romantic about what got you here (i.e. Instagram Follower count, measuring likes and comments per post) and instead, go to where things are moving.

- Daily consumption of Instagram has skyrocketed since the launch of Stories (raising the tide for the whole platform)

If you aren’t taking Stories seriously, you need to recalibrate. This is a real platform in and of itself and should probably be the first focus when using Instagram and not in the second position. Experimenting with organic and paid Stories efforts will prove out the be far more beneficial than sweating the organic reach and like count on each Instagram post. That serves a purpose too, of course, but is less of a driver than before.

Invest in Stories more now and take advantage of the good times, before that starts to change for the worse and they less value. Don’t sit on the sidelines reading yesterday’s news. Grab your phone and start telling your brand’s story…

On this episode, I talk about what metrics really matter on Instagram in January 2018. Followers and even engagements and/or engagement rates with those followers are rapidly becoming less important as the platform moves towards a “pay to play” ecosystem. Nowadays, and even more so going forward, it will be more about how well you deploy smart paid social tactics, than how many user accounts follow you or how many likes your last picture received.

Key Takeaways:
It is still important to story tell on this visual platform and to continue to publish branded content that conveys key brand messaging. If you want that key messaging to be seen AND to be seen by the right eyeballs, then you should boost that content at a very specific audience and guarantee delivery.

If retailers, partners or even your boss ask about why you don’t have more followers (or likes on your posts), tell them you don’t play in that game, as the platform has shifted away from it. Instead, show them real data that supports where you have deployed paid marketing dollars and how that has delivered targeted reach and attention for your messages. If those messages benefit them, they will be all ears.

Instagram stories are where attention is most being paid and an area where you can still stand out from the clutter and deliver key messages proactively. Commit to posting more consistently and look at the data to tell you what is resonating and where you might want to pivot and deploy different tactics.

Instagram is still “THE PLATFORM” of the moment, but the way you use it has definitely changed. Change with it and reap the benefits.

Instagram stories have been adopted by more than 300 million daily users and there have been a number of recent integrations with Facebook, that have made the reach and exposure that much more compelling. I have talked about our POV on stories before and the data just continues to prove out that stories are a place to be if you want to market where people are paying attention.

I recently read Delmondo’s Instagram story analytics report, that reviewed more than 800 active Instagram accounts and there were some key findings. I pulled them out and highlighted them below along with my quick take:

- User consumption is high and brands are (tentatively) making grabs for their attention- Of the 800, only 16% had posted a story within the last 30 days.

16% is low, which means many brands are not taking advantage of this medium. So if you are a marketer at a brand, you should be paying attention and capitalizing where others arent!

- Influencers are right At home- A key performance metric of interest during the analysis was completion rate. Who watched a story from start to finish? Influencers are in the lead for completion rate, given that high post performance is part of the criteria in needed to be an influencer.

Influencers are leading the charge and seeing excellent consumption rates. When working with an influencer, stories are great and perhaps should be the first choice!

- Keep your storyboard tight- There is a strong correlation between story length and completion rate, with a downward trend synced with an increase in the number of posts per story.

Think about your message flow and don’t just go on a posting spree. Also, consider front-loading more important brand messages in a storm or collection of stories.

- Leverage early afternoon and late evening key posting times- This is when completion rate was at over 70%.

Be thoughtful about when you post to maximize consumption potential of your content!

Instagram stories have got to be in your marketing mix if you are looking to broadcast messages on social. If you sit on the sidelines, then the story about you, will be that you blew it.

Another Q4 is upon us and it is time for brands to really lock in and focus on finishing the year off strong, if they want to win the social game. We shared this piece on our thoughts about how to think about the 4th quarter last year and all of it remains super relevant again now. Give it a read!

This year we are encouraging our clients to really be smart in these key areas:

VIDEO:

We have published a bunch of pieces on our POV on video this year and all brands should read up and become better versed on the topic as they tackle Q4 and/or start their budget planning for 2018.

This doesn’t mean that they should just be pushing out random disjointed videos with no plan. We recommend that brands rethink video and make sure to put it where it works best. Some should be simple and native (slideshows, boomerangs, GIFs and live) and not only super structured or stylized ones. Others should be of higher quality, and showcase the product and/or key attributes and USP’s. Assess top KPI’s and create videos against them!

INSTAGRAM STORIES:

All brands should be highly active with Instagram Stories in Q4, as it represents underpriced attention on the platform where users pay the most attention. Given the ephemeral nature of the content, we encourage clients to not overthink it. We recommend a “document over create” mentality and it warrants some experimentation. It should be looked at as inexpensive impressions, in front of an interested and highly attentive audience.

We wrote this piece highlighting Instagram Stories back in August, that is worth a read.

LIVE (Facebook and Instagram):

All brands should be getting involved with Facebook (and even Instagram) Live. Once again this represents very underpriced attention and it is a way to hack increased exposure on Facebook. Fan bases are mostly irrelevant these days when it comes to organic content and for brands looking to contact more people on Facebook with their content, this is now a must. Rather than talking about why it won’t work, you need to be cracking the code on what will.

We created this post on Facebook and/or Instagram Live that highlights the need and breaks down some small ball tactics to help clients glean even more value from their efforts. Live video is watched 3x longer than videos that aren’t live anymore, AND users comment on Facebook Live videos at 10x the rate of regular videos.

ANCHOR:

For brands really looking to put out consistent content about their brand or industry, Anchor represents a very easy way to get into the podcasting/audio game. Some people might prefer audio over video, and this would be a path to do so seamlessly. This is only a recommendation for the most consistent content producers, as it takes time and commitment to stick the landing. It is probably a little early for most, but given the emergence of voice and podcasting it is worth investigating at this point. Don’t sit on the sidelines and get involved!

These are just some of the key areas of focus right now, and ones that we feel will pay dividends for our clients. Get your team in position and go and win this quarter!

A year ago today, Instagram rolled out their “stories” product. It was a direct shot across the bow of Snap, Inc. and many wondered if it would stick the landing as a real and viable product. That month we posted our thoughts on the product and gave recommendations on how brands might want to go about tackling the shiny new toy.

A year later and Instagram Stories are a powerful force in the social media ecosystem. According to this post on Instagram’s blog, which was sort of a birthday wish to itself, over 50% of businesses posted an Instagram story last month. Even more amazing is that it has drastically increased the time spent by their 250 million+ active daily users, making it a more valuable platform for consumers and creating increased consumption opportunities for brands.

It quickly went from a dip your toe in situation to a front and center focus for many brands and we have found that it produces a power punch of impressions, accelerates reach and engagement and helps produce better results from brand and influencer collaborations. This is top billing placement, on the platform where the most users are paying the most attention. If you have a brand that is looking to communicate with customers and followers online, then this is a story you want to write yourself into.

What is better/more appropriate for your brand, Snapchat or Instagram Stories? Clients have begun asking this question with greater frequency for sure. With the heated rivalry bubbling at an all time high, they both provide very compelling arguments and benefits.

This piece from Social Media Today provides some solid insight, backed by data on the topic and is worth a read. Our take is that brands should be playing in any ecosystem where there is potential to stand out and capture the attention of their target demo AND IF they can put out good, relevant and consistent content. Know what you want to say, know how to say it on the platform(s) in question and then execute.

We work with a lot of smaller or early stage brands who are just learning their voice, who their customer is and how to create and deploy content. With them we have historically focused more heavily on evergreen vs ephemeral content, as it sticks around longer and carries more long term value. When Instagram stories came out we wrote a piece about it and talked about the idea of documenting vs creating (and therefore not having to invest a lot of time in crafting excellent visuals) and encouraged clients to experiment with some raw content. Early results for our clients have proven that there is underpriced attention there, and we are all in on that.

Since many SMB’s have already taken the time to create Instagram accounts for their business, have learned the ecosystem and have developed an audience already, we give “The Gram” a slight edge. Brands have already figured out ways to “advertise” there and trying to do that for the first time in the Snapchat environment will feel a bit foreign. It is also a bit less intuitive for most and harder to navigate, therefore making it a less attractive option in the short term.

We sense that both will play a big role in 2017, but as it stands today Instagram provides an easier roadmap and path to success for SMB’s. Stay tuned for updates on both throughout the year, but for now head over to IG and follow some of our brand’s stories for some inspiration.

If you are alive and have a smartphone (read: everyone) then you probably already know that Instagram rolled out their “Stories” feature in August as a way to compete with their growing competitor, Snapchat. By rolling out this easy to use feature, natively on the already popular Instagram platform, they took an increasingly growing and popular format (short term “must see” disappearing content) and served it up in a seamless way (via Instagram’s app already on most users phones).

Facebook has historically either purchased their growing competitors (i.e. Instagram) or outflanked them and beat them at their own game (Facebook Live > Periscope and now Stories >Snapchat). Many influencers jumped right in, as did some major brands. Over the past couple of weeks smaller brands have dabbled, including us on some of our client accounts. Our approach (as it always is with these things) was to sit, watch and consume both content put out by brands AND the many articles written about the topic in the past three weeks before we jumped in with a recommendation for our clients. Now that we have done that and a new month and a new season is afoot, here it is.

We think Instagram stories are great for offering up context as opposed to content. Whereas we are big believers in using Facebook and Instagram proper for staging attractive looking content that stands out and is appealing visually, with stories we are much more about “documenting rather than creating”. So it should feel raw and semi abstract. Less structured, no edits and just real deal storytelling about what the brand is up to.

For now it is a great way to document the how, why, where and even the who, behind the what. Some ideas:

1) Give followers more context into who you are and what your personalities are about? Are you fun? Do you clown around? Do you like dogs? Do you like memes?

2) Document growth and inertia. Palettes of product going out? Perhaps a shipment headed to a customer, a blogger or model visit to the studio etc.

3) Celebrate your fans, followers and even retail partners. Have some fan photos queued up on a screen and create a story saying “we see you @ABC and @DEF and @RST and we appreciate you!” OR go to some of your retailers and shoot on location!

4) Show off product being eaten in the office? Create a story about the making of the product. Show off your point of sale displays, so perhaps people recognize them when they see them in a store. Give an inside look into your warehouse or studio filled with product, or even your production line etc.

5) Show off ingredients and/or USP’s with quick story clips. What is in it and/or what makes it different? Tell the followers first hand without the need for a fully stylized video shoot!

In the end of the day, be fun and whimsical. Don’t feel the need to stage, light or refine. Experiment and remember, it doesn’t last an eternity. So take some risks and be a bit more carefree and real. Instagram could be your buttoned up self at work, but Instagram stories can be you at home in sweats and a scrunchie. Got it?